Calling to the Past
by The Ouran Harvest Detective
Summary: After fifteen years of not seeing Kyoya, the former Ouran High School Host Club find out where their dear friend has been after all this time: Zephyr Town of the humble Harvest Islands. *Based on the anime, not the manga*
1. Chapter 1

"Daddy," said a long-haired brunette to her tall, muscular, blond father as he headed for the door. "Where are you going?"

"He's here, I need to go greet him."

"Oh…" Her face went from confused to sad in an instant.

"Sherry Honey, you really don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"No no no, I'm fine." Sherry said as she faked a smile. "This town and the people in it are more important to me than waiting to fall in love before I marry. Please go greet him, don't worry about me." Sherry's father nodded sadly and walked out the door into the hot Summer air. He walked almost the entire distance of the town in a shockingly short few minutes, walking into a large area dedicated to the town's weekly weekend bazaar, only used during the week for tos and fros between the town and the nearby city.

~Elsewhere, a few minutes earlier~

Two men sat in a fancy black car, headed solemnly for Zephyr Town.

"Master Kyoya, your friends have been asking your father about you all year." Said the driver clad in sunglasses and a suit.

"What has he been telling them?" Responded a man dressed in a beautiful, traditional, oriental outfit.

"That you've been traveling the world."

"And that I don't know when I'm coming back?"

"Of course, Master Kyoya."

"Good."

After a minute or two they stopped in front of the town's bazaar area and Kyoya stepped out of his car, grabbed two or three bags from the back seat, and waved his driver goodbye and he drove off.

~Back to present~

Kyoya walked solemnly up to the town mayor, Sherry's father. And handed him a check.

"This should cover the funds, Mayor Felix."

"Thank you. What was that name you told me to call you by again?"

"Lloyd."

"Very well. Before I take you to meet Sherry, there's something we have to talk about."

"And what might that be, Sir?" Felix looked at his sternly and a little bit harshly.

"I've talked extensively with your family before deciding to go through with this arrangement, and while I believe you are a good man, I also don't think you know how to be one. If you ever lie to or hurt my daughter or the people of this town in any way, shape or form, you're going to wish you hadn't." Kyoya smiled.

"Of course, Mayor. I promise." Felix smiled.

"Good. Let's be off now." Felix led Kyoya through the town. It was early enough in the morning that no one had left their houses yet. Upon arriving to his house, Felix opened the door and called out "Sherry, he's here!"

"Coming Daddy!" Sherry called back and she ran down the stairs and held out her hand for Kyoya to shake. "Hi, I'm Sherry. And you are?"

"Lloyd. It's so good to meet you."

"Well," Felix started. "I've got things to get done. Be nice to each other." He went upstairs to his office and Kyoya-or rather Lloyd-flashed a grin to Sherry.

"I have a surprise for you." He said happily.

"Oh really? What is it?"

"Well, I figured that neither of us want to get married when we barely know one another. So I talked to my father and came to the agreement that he will send here with me the funds to keep the town afloat for another ten years. It isn't much, considering how small this town is, but it's enough. By the end of the ten years I have to either marry you or another girl just as powerful-or more powerful-as you, or make the bazaar successful enough for the town to stand on its own two feet. How does that sound?" Sherry smiled ear to ear at the sound of Lloyd's words.

"That sounds amazing! Does my father know yet?"

"I thought he might prefer to hear the news from you, as happy as you are about it. I hear fathers love to see their children glow with happiness, after all." Sherry's smile grew even wider.

"You know what? I think we're going to make great friends!"

"I promised your father I would never lie to you…" Sherry smile faded. "And I think you may just be correct."


	2. Chapter 2

~Fourteen years later~

Gretel, Sherry and Antoinette sat by the water near Gretel's farm. A picnic basket full of dirty napkins and a soiled picnic blanket along with three pairs of shoes sat beside them as they dunked their bare feet in the clear water. They chatted at length about many things both silly and serious, enjoying the lovely warm day.

"How's Dirk?" Antoinette asked Gretel with a monotone voice. "It's been awhile since he left town."

"I know." Gretel began to answer. "It feels like forever. He just got married a couple of weeks ago, some girl named Lillian." Antoinette's face became ever so slightly sadder than her usual sad demeanor, but she didn't say anything else.

"What about Amir?" Sherry chimed in, changing the subject.

"Married some girl named Rio a couple of months back." Gretel answered. Antoinette looked at her with a slightly annoyed face.

"Why don't you tell us these things when they happen?"

"Because nobody asks." Sherry giggled until Antoinette gave her a look of pure annoyance. "But I'll be sure to let y'all know when they're going to have kids."

"Thank you." Sherry said with a chuckle.

"How about Lloyd?" Gretel turned her full attention to Sherry's answer.

"He's been acting weird lately, to be honest."

"Weird in what way?"

"He's been very melancholy lately. Like a sad zombie. He made about half the normal amount of money he usually makes at the last bazaar because he forgot to order half the stuff he intended to. I'm honestly a little scared he's still in love with you, Gretel." Gretel laughed.

"I _highly_ doubt that's the case Sherry, it's been three years since that all happened and you two have been together ever since. Look, I'll go talk to him. We're friends so if it has anything to do with how overwhelmingly in love with _you_ he is, then it won't be as embarrassing to say." Gretel winked jokingly to her friend, who laughed and nodded her head.

"I'd like that, thank you."

~Later that week~

Lloyd heard a knock at the door as he sat going over some old receipts.

"Come in."

The door opened to reveal Gretel.

"Hey Lloyd!"

"Oh, it's you." Lloyd said as he looked at her with blank eyes. "I was expecting Sherry."

"Nope, it's me! Disappointed?" She chuckled.

"I don't know and don't ask me that again." Lloyd looked slightly agitated and mostly sad.

"Sorry, I came here to talk about something important."

"Go ahead."

She walked over to him as he turned around to face his bookshelf, looked him right in the eye, and asked:

"Is red your natural eye color?" Lloyd looked at her and raised one eyebrow in confusion.

"Why on earth would you ask me that?"

"Is red your natural eye color?" She repeated. Obviously unrelenting, he sighed, took off his glasses, and removed one contact lens from his right eye to reveal a dark purple-ish color underneath.

"How did you know?"

"Not long after I first came you, you were frantically searching for something and asked me to help you look. I picked up a book in your room to see if it was under there, but instead I saw a couple of pictures. One was a wedding photo with a bride, groom, four adults and five young men. One of them looked a lot like you but with a different eye color. The other one was the same guy that looked a lot like you only much younger with a young woman that looked like your sister-or maybe your mom."

"... Why do you bring that up now?"

"I was going to keep quiet about it, but a couple of days ago Sherry told me you were acting really melancholy and that she was scared you were still in love with me. But I had the feeling it had to do with those pictures I found." Lloyd silently walked over to his room as Gretel followed. He picked up a book to reveal not only the two pictures Gretel had found-which were now tattered and yellow from age and being messed with-but a polaroid selfie of Gretel, Sherry, Felix and Lloyd.

"These?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Yeah, those." Gretel replied. "Except for that polaroid… I didn't know you'd kept that."

"Right as always, Gretel." Lloyd said with a sad yet impressed smirk on his face.

"Why do you have them here?"

"While not everyone in these pictures is someone I've loved…" He paused for a few seconds before continuing with a sad break in his voice. "Everyone I've ever truly loved in any way is in these pictures." Gretel looked up at him somberly.

"What about the townsfolk, Kyoya?"

"I'm not really sure, but they certainly don't stand out like the people in these pictures. I'm a man of few friends, and don't miss people easily. And where did you hear that name?" Gretel didn't look surprised. She held up the back of the picture of a young Lloyd and the woman that looked like his sister or mother.

"The picture says 'To: Kyoya From: Your favorite sister'." Lloyd smiled.

"Oh, makes sense." He slightly chuckled.

"So tell me about who you love." Gretel asked him shamelessly.

"As you know, the woman in that picture is my sister. She was the only family member of mine I truly cared for. She was the one that got my father to let me come here without having to marry someone immediately, and after she moved into a nearby town in this country, she helped me break ties with my father and the family company. She sometimes comes to the bazaars to see me and I sometimes go to her town to see her."

"What town is she in?"

"The one Dirk ran off to. She's the doctor there. My family runs a 'wellness business' as she calls it."

"You need to introduce me to her one day!" Lloyd nodded slightly. "What about the wedding picture?"

"I met the groom, Tamaki, in junior high when my father told me to befriend him for business purposes. He became my first friend and my best male friend to this day. And is one of the top people who've had the biggest impact on me-the people I love the most. My sister being one of them, but only after I moved here." There was a thoughtful silence before he continued. "We started a club together in high school, a host club where we threw parties, cosplayed, and played the parts the girls with too much time wanted to waste their between-class time talking with." He smirked a little as Gretel held back her laughter and disbelief. "The bride, Haruhi, is one of the other people I've loved the most. She broke a very expensive vase when she wandered into the club and had to pose as a boy and be a part of the club to pay off her debt. She was very boyish-looking and didn't bother to dress very girly, so it took us all a while to discover she was a girl and very few others ever found out." He laughed at loud at the memory and Gretel smiled gently at the rare sight. "I fell in love with her, almost all of us and many more did, but I knew that she and Tamaki were meant to be and even if they weren't, I couldn't possibly try and pursue her while Tamaki was head over heals in love with her. Unless someone else started getting the upper hand of her affections, because Tamaki would be happier with me winning her over than for both of us to lose her. But that never happened, and when Tamaki told me they were engaged and asked me to be his best man, I began making plans to travel the world for a year and then move here, to this humble little town. I couldn't bare to stay near her and hide my feelings any longer."

Gretel stood patiently waiting for him to continue, knowing he would. Besides, she had no clue what to say. "The man and woman next to Tamaki are his parents. It was very hard to get his mother there and even harder to get his grandmother to not ruin the wedding because of it, but we managed. He cried tears of joy when he saw her for the first time since he was in junior high. It was the night before the wedding and he had no clue what was happening. The old woman next to him is his grandmother. The man next to Haruhi is her father. The tall, tan man next to her and the short blond one next to her are Mitsukuni Haninozuka and Takashi Morinozuka. They were members of our club. They just barely made it to being some of the people I've loved in life, and I'd certainly call them my friends. At least, they were. The twins next to her are the Hitachiin Kaoru and Hikaru, they were also part of the Hosts Club. They made it a little bit higher than Mori and Hunny on my list." Gretel chuckled. "What is it this time?" Lloyd asked, genuinely confused about why she was laughing this time.

"Do you have some sort of list with each person you've ever loved in order?" She laughed in between cackles of laughter.

"I guess a little, why is that so funny?"

"Because that's exactly what a tsundere like you would do!" She said between even more cackling. Lloyd's smile had faded into a look of pure confusion.

"Tsundere? I guess you can call me that…" Gretel calmed down and smiled a big grin.

"So does that mean that Mayor Felix, Sherry and I made it into your loved-ones list, or just one or two of us? Where do we stand?" Lloyd gave a little, almost unrecognizable smirk.

"All three of you. Mayor Felix would be in between the twins and my top five, you and Sherry would be in the top five."

"You don't have Sherry above everyone else?" Gretel asked, a little concerned.

"I don't really know, to be honest." He answered with a sad look on his face. "Emotions and feelings take me forever to process, and I honestly don't know if I've ever felt the feelings others get when they're in love. I've 'fallen in love' with every woman other than my sister I've ever truly cared about. Whether or not my version of love is the same as anyone else's I don't really know. Perhaps it's just true friendship and commitment I've felt."

He frowned sadly and turned his back to Gretel as he spoke. "Maybe Sherry is just a good friend who I decided to 'love' and commit to when I felt as though she finally understood me. I don't even know if I feel about her anymore strongly than you or Haruhi even to this day. The only difference I know is that I want to marry her and be faithful to her and her alone. I want to protect her and tell her stories until we're good and old. I want to raise my children with her and make her happy, even at the cost of anyone else. But this isn't as much of an emotion as I feel it should be, but rather a mental decision. What does Tamaki feel when he looked at Haruhi? What did Haruhi's father feel when he looked at Haruhi's mother? What does Ivan feel when looks at Freya? Angelo with Daisy? Dirk with Lilia, my sister's always raving about them! Stuart and Ethel, Wilbur and Claire, Isaac and Nellie, Raul and Marian, WHAT IS IT THEY FEEL THAT I DON'T!" He turned around as his voice raised, tears in his eyes as he grabbed gretel's arms. "What am I not giving Sherry that so many other men give their girlfriends, fiances and wives?" He lowered his head in defeat. "And why do I miss my old friends so much now when for so many years I didn't care, despite caring so much for them? And why do I care about this town so much, but not know if I love the people in it?" Gretel put her hand on his shoulder before answering.

"Everyone feels things differently. Some people are super optimistic and love everyone, others are very negative and find it very hard to trust a soul. Some people are very sensitive to words and or touch, while others find it very hard to feel anything at all. But no matter who you are and where you fall on that spectrum, love-whether it be a friend love, a family love, and a significant other love-is a choice. And as long as you choose to love her as your wife forever and to put her before anyone else, that's good enough. And I can promise you she thinks so too." Lloyd raised his head up sadly-a rare sight that Gretel had never seen this much before today-and nodded.

"Thank you." He said quietly.

"No problem." Gretel said, smiling ear to ear. "Now what shall I report back to Sherry?"

"Tell her anything you want. Everything that was said is you desire. I don't care if you recorded this entire conversation and show her. Just make sure she knows that I love her."

"I will." After that, Lloyd hugged her. Something he had never done before, not with anyone. His tears dripped onto her back and soaked her shirt as he hugged her like an adopted toddler that never had a hug before and finally reached out to his mother after a terrifying stroke of lightning.

"Thank you."


End file.
